World’s leading persuasion expert Phil Hesketh reveals secrets to get people to support your passion
Successful people are driven to succeed because they’ve found something they feel passionate about. But all the passion in the world doesn’t mean much if you can’t influence people with it.
Phil Hesketh is a leading expert on influence and persuasion. He says that while it’s difficult to persuade people to do things, if you can tap into their passions, motivation becomes a lot easier.
“When people discover what they’re good at and like doing,” says Phil, “they’ll be passionate and motivated.”
So how can you use your passion to influence others? First, ask what’s most important about something close to them—a job, relationship, or some other passion? Next, ask what their expectations are about that thing?
You are most influential when you get people to look at these questions.
“People often people say I inspired them to action,” says Phil. “But they usually wanted to do the inspired thing anyway.” In other words, passion is infectious!
Watch today’s episode to learn how to influence people with your passion, and don’t forget to share it around and spread the passion.
Live Passionately
Moustafa Hamwi
Passionpreneur & Chief Energy Officer
Award Winning Author & Speaker
AKA The Passion Guy
Transcript
Moustafa: Hello everyone and welcome back to Passion Sundays, the best way to end the week and start another.
Our guest today stands to be the world’s leading expert on influence and persuasion, Phil Hesketh. Phil…
Phil: It’s nice being here!
Moustafa: Thanks for being here!
Phil: Pleasure!
Moustafa: It’s an honor to have somebody with such an important topic in the world. Because, all this passion in the world can do nothing if you can’t influence and persuade people with your passion. So what does passion mean to you?
Phil: You know every successful person I’ve ever met, every truly successful person I’ve asked them “What is it that makes you? What is it that drives you? What is it that makes you want to be successful?” Their answer always comes down to the fact that they’re driven. Like it’s almost not their fault and how the drive manifests itself is passion. Now without passion, you can’t be successful. Without passion, you can’t be happy.
Moustafa: I love it! And ahhh…How do you find passion?
Phil: It’s a, it’s a bit like confidence isn’t it? You know where it’s, where it’s come from and where it’s go. Passion. A passion obviously comes from the great deep down desire to do something. Ah I often talk about motivation and how people are motivated to do what they want to do.
It’s so difficult to motivate people. It’s so difficult to persuade them to do something. It’s very difficult to be successful if you’re not passionate. So I think the message for me as always been as is for many people, find out what you are good at and what you like doing because you’ll be passionate about it. Well than try to be passionate about something that you don’t want to do.
Moustafa: Uhm I love it. So it’s basically, find what you’re passionate about not get passionate about what you’re doing.
Phil: Yeah, ah, ah for sure the ideal world and I do appreciate many people who are top in their job. But the ah ideal world is find out what you’re passionate about what you’re doing because I’m passionate about what I’m doing and then you’ll be good at it, and then you’ll get better at it, and then you’ll enjoy it, and then you’ll earn money and so on. If you’re doing something that you don’t want to do and then fake it!
Moustafa: Hmm.
Phil: I’m reminded my single, like a a cheat to fake it but if you’re currently doing something you’re not happy about doing then fake it until you go find something you can do.
Moustafa: But that is I mean a bit idealistic because you know I mean yes I’m the Passion Guy and I want everybody to be passionate but if you’re you know, 40, 50 years old, you’re in a job, you got a family to take care of, you’ve got expenses, you got a mortgage, you can’t do what you are passionate about.
Phil: Uhm.
Moustafa: How can you be passionate about what you’re doing?
Phil: Yeah! Well let’s take for example the first thought that comes into my head, let’s say you’re a dentist. So you’re earning good money, let’s say you are 45 to 50 years old. You got a mortgage, you’ve got children, you’re passionate about that! So you gotta the earn money and you earn good money being a dentist but you are not passionate about dentistry.
For me, what you gonna do is ask your patients about the treatment and ask them how it helps them. So you don’t see yourself as being a dentist but somebody who helps somebody get rid of pain, helps somebody have better teeth and so on.
Moustafa: And how would you use these techniques and other techniques to talk about persuasion or influence in that for that matter?
Phil: Well what I talk about is that there are two key questions in persuasion and influence. And I have what I call 50 killer questions and let me give you what I think to be the Top 2. The most influential that you can be is when you ask somebody “What is the most important thing to you about? So what is the most important thing to you about this video? So what the most important thing to you about this program? What is the most important thing to you about your relationship?” And then you got into what’s important and then you say “What are your expectations?”
‘Cause you can’t be happy if you’re not meeting other people’s expectations and you don’t meet your own expectations. Just like in sport, ah somebody could get a bronze medal and be very, very happy ‘cause it’s more than they’ve expected. Got a silver medal but be unhappy cause they only want the gold.
Moustafa: So it’s about managing your expectations and the other part is expectations.
Phil: That exactly it! Yeah you gotta know what is the expectation of the other person, what are my expectations and sometimes, you know, to go passionate you gotta manage your own expectations.
Moustafa: Oh so it’s manage your passion to be more persuasive?
Phil: Well at first you gotta manage your own expectations to say “So what, what does the reasons that’ll expectations for me personally?” Whoever you are and then so “Can, how can I achieve a little bit of more than that?” You know you can do and many yet are passionate about achieving a bit more. Cause most people are not passionate about doing the same thing day in, day out.
Moustafa: What is the difference actually in this context between persuasion and influence?
Phil: Okay. I think persuasion is something you do to someone. So imagine, ahh if you go home tonight and say to the, whoever you live with “Guess what I’ve been persuaded to do?” You won’t feel good about it.
Moustafa: Uhm.
Phil: Have you ever gone home and said “Hey guess what, I’ve been sold today.” You don’t feel good about it. I think persuasion is something you do to someone it’s a bit temporary. Influence is something that you have on people. So you can be influenced by an athlete running a race so you not meet the athlete. You can be influenced by your boss being passionate and he or she doesn’t know that they have an influence on you. So influence is something that you have on people.
Moustafa: And what would I do if I want to influence the world with passion for example? Or how does passion relate to influence?
Phil: Sure! I think passion is infectious.
Moustafa: Okay.
Phil: Ahhh often people say to me “We’re gonna do thing that I do, ummm, you inspired me.” Ah that’s great! What did I inspire you to do? There’s almost always what they wanted to do anyway.
Moustafa: Okay.
Phil: But uh you, you if you can give energy to people, they can inspire people and that makes people passionate!
Moustafa: Okay, so by me becoming more passionate I’m actually influencing the world to be more of what they’re passionate about. It’s not necessarily that I’m impacting them with my or persuading to pursue what I believe is passion.
Phil: Yeah, that’s right! Cause if you say well this is what, I think passion is there for I’m gonna inflict it on you. I don’t think it works as well as if you ask what people what they wanna do. This is thing right at the beginning, I told you about drive what is it that makes people do what they wanna do instead. Passion! So for me the key thing is such, you can when you are passionate it’s like, it’s like giving off energy.
Moustafa: Phil, what an amazing way to conclude this episode and we really appreciate having you here!
Phil: Pleasure, big pleasure!
Moustafa and Phil: Passion!
Moustafa: What do you think? I would really love to hear your opinion. Let us know your thoughts on the blog below and if you found it useful, share it with your friends. And if you’d like more tools, tips, techniques and exclusive interviews that I only share on my website, go to Moustafa.com. And until next episode, live passionately!
